This past month has been a crazy journey, and we are happy that you were a part of it! We raised $20,357 in 30 days, with the support of 303 backers! Not only did we meet our goal but we went above and beyond it--you guys are amazing! Thank you so much for your support, from your messages, to sharing Axle with your friends, to your donations. Every dollar means a lot, and we could not have gotten where we are without each one of you!

Even though we did not make our $22,000 goal to port Axle to iPhone, iPad, Kindle Fire, and Ouya, we still have plans to make Axle multi-platform. Though we cannot release Axle on these platforms at the same time as the Android release around April 2013, we plan on staggering our future releases as we are able to afford them. We did get very close to our $22k goal though, and that does help a lot. What this means is that we are that much closer to affording releases on other platforms, so again, a huge thank you for helping us with a significant step towards this goal!

Just because this Kickstarter campaign is over, does not mean we have forgotten you! We'll be sure to keep you updated on release date information, porting plans, the continuing development of the game, and whatever else we feel is cool enough to share!

We want to keep hearing from you too! Please, always feel free to contact us with your thoughts, concerns, or even just to chat!

We're livestreaming our Axle work jam until 2pm Pacific! Every Saturday we get together and meet about the production and design of Axle, check in on tasks, and get some work done. Today we're sharing that process with you! (Don't worry, we work on Axle every other day as well, Saturday is just our day for meetings!)

Click the link below to see us design levels, create art, and do all the other stuff we do for Axle!

Today, we are hosting an Ask Me Anything thread on Reddit with our development team! We'll be taking questions about the game, behind-the-scenes, or anything else! If you have any questions or want to chat, we'll be online until around 7pm PST!

DeltaAttack also wrote a great article about Axle, calling out some interesting points about our gameplay!

Thanks to your feedback, we have added a $35 Digital Only Reward Tier. In it, you can get Desktop/Phone Backgrounds, Ad-Free Copy of Axle Game, $15 Worth of Watts, a Virtual Thank You Card, Downloadable Soundtrack and the Digital Behind-the-Scenes Art Book.

Thank you everyone for your continuing support as we enter our final week of fundraising! Thanks to you, we have been making progress towards our stretch goal. With your help, we can reach $22,000, and make Axle multi-platform for everyone!

Wow! Yesterday morning we reached our first goal! Thank you so much for your support! We can all breath a sigh of relief, knowing that we will be able to make this game a reality!

With ten days left in our campaign, we are determined to reach the $22,000 goal! With this goal we will be able to port Axle to multiple platforms! In addition to iPhone, iPad, and Kindle Fire, we are also proud to announce that we can port to Ouya and Windows Phone 8 at the same goal!

Since I spent a good portion of last week having a blast creating levels for Axle, I’m going to take some time to talk a bit about the level editor.

Currently, we use Unity to build our levels. It helps us with the drag & drop system, previewing and other functionality we would have to build ourselves. We export a level file from Unity, which remembers where we placed all of our objects, and what they do. The game is a native Java application that runs the level file on the Android.

Obviously, we want to make this multi-platform, so we’re in the process of changing our native Android application into a Unity application. However, we’ll still be able to have a unique level file that we can load into the game, which can give players the power to create their own levels!

The level editor currently looks like this. Unity is very powerful, but there is a lot to learn.

If we can make it to $30,000, we can make a desktop Unity application that will be a streamlined level editor for Axle. This way, you do not need any experience with Unity to use it, and it will be simple and safe for kids to use and experiment with!

First of all, I just want to thank all of you for supporting us this far! Your feedback and questions have been fantastic. There are going to be some upcoming times for you to ask us questions and for us to get to know you coming up, so mark your calenders! We will provide the links the day-of.

Reddit AMA on Sunday, November 11th 11am-6pm PST. Ask us anything!

Livestream on Friday, November 16th 8pm-10pm PST. We're going to be playing some platformers like Donkey Kong Country Returns, so let us know if you have suggestions! We would love to give your favorite games a try!

Livestream on Saturday, November 17th 11am-2pm PST. We're going to be working on the game. See the magic happen!

Livestream on Sunday, November 18th 3pm-6pmPST. The final countdown! Tune and and cheer Axle on as the kickstarter finishes up!

Media & Blogs

Ian, one of our awesome backers included us in his video series! (Axle is at 3:14)

Jan Norman at the OC Register featured us in Friday's paper! We were on the very front page of the business section, and were interviewed about how we got started and how we are bootstrapping our business with the Chapman eVillage. The story also spread toMSNBC, Businessweek, and the Dodge College Blog.

The F***Yeah Electroswing blog wrote up a great (and funny) post about Axle, Kickstarter, and modern publishing. (Not Safe for Work - Language)

As a side note, if you like electro-swing check outhttp://turntable.fm/boomswing_cabaret tonight at 6pm PST/9pm EST. @...And Sushi will be showcasing their 20-track mashup album “We Can Dance”, each featuring Caravan Palace in some way or another. I highly recommend dropping in - your ears will thank you.

Level Editing!

Since I spent a good portion of last week having a blast creating levels for Axle, I’m going to take some time to talk a bit about the level editor.

Currently, we use Unity to build our levels. It helps us with the drag & drop system, previewing and other functionality we would have to build ourselves. We export a level file from Unity, which remembers where we placed all of our objects, and what they do. The game is a native Java application that runs the level file on the Android.

Obviously, we want to make this multi-platform, so we’re in the process of changing our native Android application into a Unity application. However, we’ll still be able to have a unique level file that we can load into the game, which can give players the power to create their own levels!

The level editor currently looks like this. Unity is very powerful, but there is a lot to learn.

If we can make it to $30,000, we can make a desktop Unity application that will be a streamlined level editor for Axle. This way, you do not need any experience with Unityto use it, and it will be simple and safe for kids to use and experiment with.

Let us know if you have any questions or comments, and have a fantastic week!

Cheers,Liz Fiacco & The Axle Team

Bonus: Here are some sneak peeks at our new levels! (As shown in the level editor)

We just want to send our thanks to the team at OC Register, our mentors at the Chapman eVillage for supporting us, and to Digital Arts and the Computer Science Departments for giving us the opportunity to work on Axle while we were still students!

In other news, we are now over $13k on our Kickstarter! Thank you for your support so far!

EDIT : The OC Register article has also been posted on MSNBCand Businessweek websites!